It’s that time of the year again. The beginning of August marks the start of EA Sports yearly release schedule and with it comes the latest installment of Madden NFL. This year EA Tiburon aren’t trying to reinvent the wheel. Instead it feels more like a holding pattern awaiting the next gen consoles, with minor tweaks preferred to wholesale changes. That said there are ample reasons why Madden 20 reigns supreme over last years game, so let’s break it down.
Players feel more unique in Madden 20 thanks to a new superstar abilities and X-Factor system that has been implemented similar to what we see in Konami’s PES series. These traits allow individual players to play more towards their strength, resulting in a much more realistic experience. In particular this adds an edge to online play, where fine margins make all the difference.
Core mechanics have also been updated, the most obvious of these is in the running game. Players react faster to your input and this allows you to be much more effective at exploiting gaps in the defensive line. This may seem like a small change, but it has a big impact on your offensive possibilities. There are still issues with some awkward collisions, but nothing that brings you too far out of the experience.
Face of the Franchise: QB1 is Madden 20’s new showpiece mode and takes the place of Longshot which had appeared in the previous two iterations of the franchise. You create a quarterback and work your way through the newly added NCAA division, experience the NFL draft and the life of an NFL player. Your draft position is based on performance and the team you end up at the generated for you, meaning a Detroit Lions fan could end up drafted to the Green Bay Packers.
While lacking the drama and more in-depth story of the previously aforementioned Longshot, Face of the Franchise drops most of the drama and delivers more on what you would expect from a Madden career mode and personally I enjoyed what I played. I expect this mode to be decisive, but more of a hit than a miss with seasoned Madden fans.
Franchise mode is a real disappointment this year. Much like Career Mode in FIFA, it feels like once again Franchise has taken a back seat while Ultimate Team, EA’s real cash cow, eats up the majority of the development time. It honestly feels like at this point it will take EA finding a way to monetise this mode for real change to happen.
Solo challenges are gone in Madden 20 and have been replaced with three star ‘Ultimate Challenges’. This allows you to tackle them in one, two or three star difficulty, netting better rewards for the more taxing accomplishments. Collect enough stars and you can redeem some great bonuses, but at it’s core MUT is still a microtransaction minefield. Nothing will change in that regard until consumers say no.
Madden 20 looks superb. It’s a cliche at this point to compare it to the real deal, but the new lighting system allows EA to continue to blur the lines between gameplay and game. As you would expect at this stage of the console cycle, we are now seeing the full realisation of what this gen is capable of. Going forward even more lifelike animations will be required to truly immerse you in the action.
As with most sports games there is a tonne of value here if you are invested in the sport. These are the games I come back to all throughout the year and only finally stop once the new version arrives. Madden 20 is no different.
As I said at the top of the review, Madden 20 is a step forward for the franchise rather than a leap. These steps though, are all in the right direction for me. With annual sports games there are sometimes years you feel you could skip an entry, but for Madden this isn’t one of them. Whether you mainly play off or online, the new X-Factor players and superstar abilities add a tactical element that wasn’t there previously. I hope the NHL and FIFA teams are watching closely.
Reviewed on PS4 Pro. A review code was provided by the publisher.
Terry
